They had for centuries labored to promote religion and education among their colored brethren.

So earnest were these sects in working for the uplift of the Negro race that the reactionary movement failed to swerve them from their course.
When the other churches adopted the policy of mere verbal training, the Quakers and Catholics adhered to their idea that the Negroes should be educated to grasp the meaning of the Christian religion just as they had been during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.[1] This favorable situation did not mean so much, however, since with the exception of the Catholics in Maryland and Louisiana and the Quakers in Pennsylvania, not many members of these sects lived in communities of a large colored population.

Furthermore, they were denied access to the Negroes in most southern communities, even when they volunteered to work as missionaries among the colored people.[2] [Footnote 1: _Special Report of the U.S.Com.

of Ed_., 1871, pp.
217-221.] [Footnote 2: In several Southern States special laws were enacted to prevent the influx of such Christian workers.] How difficult it was for these churchmen to carry out their policy of religion without letters may be best observed by viewing the conditions then obtaining.

In most Southern States in which Negro preachers could not be deterred from their mission by public sentiment, they were prohibited by law from exhorting their fellows.
The ground for such action was usually said to be incompetency and liability to abuse their office and influence to the injury of the laws and peace of the country.